


Not All Who Wander

by MarlenaWatches



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/M, First Meeting, Hadvar - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 03:07:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11348592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarlenaWatches/pseuds/MarlenaWatches
Summary: A Bosmer runs away from Valenwood.  She ends up wishing she'd stayed.There will be more of this, I'm just figuring out Lore.





	1. Welcome To Helgen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar beginning.

_....I am so fucked._

    The undersized bosmer had been tossed unceremoniously into the back of a horse-drawn cart, hands bound, feet hobbled, mouth gagged.  She’d bitten one of her captors so viciously that a chunk of flesh had made its way down her gullet. He’d backhanded her in retaliation, his armored glove splitting the skin over her left cheek bone.

    Not that she’d been able to feel it in the moment, what with her brain rattling around in her skull like an old gourds’ innards five frostfalls past its use.  A filthy cloth had been stuffed into her mouth before she’d even got her breath back, and so here she sat, panting past the linen on her tongue, surrounded by huge smelly nords in Stormcloak colors, their hands all bound, shoulders hunched in resentful defeat as Imperial troops herded them all ungently into the three spartan carts at the edge of their camp.

    Her stomach gave a queasy lurch as a woman shouted an order somewhere at her back, and the carts creaked into motion as the horses pulled toward the road.

_I am well and truly buggered._

    Not one to face her end gracefully, she set to grinding her gag between her teeth; hoping to free her mouth, and then perhaps the rest of herself. Her teeth were sharper than your average Mer’s, and perhaps she could hide behind a nord while she gnawed through the binds at her wrists…

    Speaking of, one of the big blond idiots was talking to her. She glared at him over her gag, chewing at the material between her lips with an air of murderous determination.  The nord quickly shifted his focus to the horse-thief at his side. Someone else who’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fucking Imperials.

    She ceased her gnawing for a moment when the pelt-bedecked nord seated at her right was identified.  Ulfric bloody Stormcloak himself, captured by Imperial forces, sitting there calm as you please, with his wrists trussed together and a gag to match her own in his mouth.

    She couldn’t help it. It was just… _funny_. She started chortling through the fabric, and then found she couldn’t stop.  Ralof, the chatty nord facing her, stared at her silently with this look on his face that was just so very _offended_ …  It set her off even worse.

    Ulfric gazed sidelong at her, his blue eyes cold. Positively flinty. The effect was ruined by the kerchief tied at the back of his head, and she only laughed harder.

    The soldier driving their cart snapped at them over his shoulder, ordering silence, and the bosmer calmed herself with obvious effort, shaking her head as she resumed the jaw-aching work of destroying her muzzle.

     After what felt like forever, the cloth gave way, and she worked the half-shredded remnants down past her chin.  It fell to rest around her neck, soggy and tattered.  She worked her cramping jaw in relief, and then glanced covertly around at the various mounted Imperials surrounding their cart.  None of them were paying her the slightest bit of attention.  She hunkered down slowly, using the cart’s edge for what little cover it offered, and brought her bound hands up to her mouth.

    Unfortunately, she’d run out of time.  They had arrived at…wherever it was they were being taken.  A little village called Helgen, as it turned out.  Ralof nattered on about some lost love he’d known from here, while the bosmer tried not to vomit in sheer terror at the sight of the Imperial General speaking with Thalmor Judiciars…and beyond them, a headsman’s block.  Complete with the prerequisite axe-wielding headsman.

_They’re going to simply execute us all.  Because of course they are.  They have Ulfric shitting Stormcloak, trussed up like a suckling pig; they’d be fools not to take the advantage.  I’m just in the way.  As usual._

    The cart slowed to a bumpy stop, and they were all ordered out, shuffling awkwardly down to the ground.  The horse-thief tried to run when they wouldn’t listen to his protests.  She turned her face away from the inevitable result of his panic.  Fucking Imperials.

    They called her forward, and the care-worn man with the list asked her for her name.  Her voice felt rusty as she responded;  “B’Sanna Triaal.”

    “Odd name for a bosmer…”

    “My great grandfather was a dunmer.  They say I got his sense of humor.”

    He blinked, then hid a rueful smile as he told his superior that she wasn’t on the list.  It didn’t matter.  She was to go to the block regardless.  What little light she’d put in his eyes with her quip then died, and he sent her to the line with resigned assurances that her remains would be returned to Valenwood.  Like that meant anything.  Fucking Imperials.

    The first to go was a red-headed man who interrupted the priest giving them their last rights.  B'Sanna couldn't decide if she was grateful for or frustrated by the forced expedience.  And then it didn't matter, because the red of the dead man's hair was nothing to the red that spilled forth from the stump of his neck once the ax came down.  B'Sanna swallowed bile.

_Oh, it's my turn.  Fantastic.  So this is how I ended up.  My great and glorious escape ends here, in some shitty nord village at the frigid crown of the world.  If the Spinner could see me now..._


	2. Helgen Burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chaos begins. B'Sanna mouths off at Ulfric. Helgen burns.

    B’Sanna was dimly annoyed that the Imperial lieutenant couldn’t even be bothered to move the fresh Stormcloak corpse out of the way as she was forced to kneel over it, her upper body falling forward, extending her neck across the roughly hewn surface of the blood-soaked chopping block.  

_Please, Y'ffre, I beg of you; if ever you considered me one of yours, I ask for a merciful end.  If death must come, at least let it be quick..._

    An echoing roar sounded in the distance, distracting the soldiers, allowing her time to notice that the dead nord’s head was still in the basket just beneath her down-turned face, and for what felt like the thousandth time that day, the bosmer felt her gorge rise.

    Just as the headsman had raised his blade to its zenith, a massive, demonic winged _thing_ landed on the watchtower behind him, and brought the sky down upon Helgen with a deafening roar. Flaming meteorites and flashing lighting fell upon Imperial and Stormcloak alike, and the hapless residents of Helgen were left scrambling for the shelter of homes that were subsequently  transformed into burning tombs by the rain of fire.

    Dumbstruck, dazed, and terrified out of her wits, B’Sanna rolled away from the executioner’s block and stood shakily, crimson eyes taking in what must surely be the beginning of the end of the world.  The monster was once more airborne, wheeling and diving with apparent relish as the people below scurried around like ants in an upturned nest.

    “Hey! Wood Elf! Come on, this way!”

    That was Ralof. He and the other Stormcloaks were disappearing into the watch tower, and he was motioning for her to follow.  Well, better in there with a bunch of idiot nords than out here with sky-fallen flame and a demon disguised as a dragon!  She took off, running fast as her feet would take her, until she was through the doorway and inside the stone structure.  Ralof slammed the door shut behind her, and as she tried to calm the hammer of her heart, she heard Ulfric speak.

    She hadn’t known voices could sound like that, whether man or mer.  It felt like muted thunder, his words rumbling through the air like a physical force, and she found herself half-believing that he could shout a man to pieces if he’d a mind to.  And then she realized what he was saying to her, and her face twisted into a sneer.

    “Join your rebellion?  You’re serious?  You’d let some backwoods little bosmer fight beside your precious Sons of Skyrim?  Oh, could I really?  It would be _such_ an honor; truly, I’ve dreamed of little else since I came to this miserable, frozen hellscape…”

    “There's no need for such sarcasm; a ‘no’ would have done very well,” Ralof cut in with a frown.

    “But that wouldn’t have been nearly so satisfying!”

    Ulfric shook his head, muttering darkly, “Why did I even bother…”

    “I don’t know.  Most of you nords have been positively _charming_ in your rustic, racist reclusion; you’re breaking the mold a bit, aren’t you?”

    “It doesn’t matter what you look like, if you’ll fight for Skyrim’s freedom, that’s good enough for me.”

    “How….egalitarian of you.  The answer’s still no.  The Empire’s tried to take my head once already for merely being in the _vicinity_ when they caught you.  Even if I were interested, and I am NOT, why would I throw my life away for a doomed cause run by warriors who've no concept of strategy?  The Thalmor have the Legion neatly pinned to their pockets, working in concert to hunt down and eradicate your forces.  If not for that fucking Demonwing out there, they'd have ended your pathetic rebellion two minutes ago.  You’re all going to die, sooner rather than later, and it won’t be pretty when you do.  I’m not going to stick around to watch your ineptitude catch you out.”

    Ulfric growled at that and strode toward her.  B'Sanna's eyes grew wide as he seized the front of her shirt.  His blue eyes flashed and there was a rumble in the large man’s chest that spoke of raw, destructive power.  “What do you know of war, eh, little elf?  What could you possibly know of fighting for the freedom of your people?”

    Her mouth twisted upward in a sardonic smirk; “ _There’s_ that northern condescension I’ve become so very familiar with!  And to answer your question, _nord_ , you seem to forget that Valenwood has its own history with the Aldmeri dominion.  There are many bosmer tribes who’ve never held with the Altmer’s insistence upon global domination, and mine was such a one.  The difference between your fight and ours?  We’ve _kept_ sovereignty of _our_ lands.”

    Ulfric studied her for a moment, then pushed her away with a disgusted snort.  “Not hard to do when the woods themselves are alive with the spirits of your gods, and hungry as any beast for the flesh of the unwary.”

    B'Sanna snorted; "Don't believe everything you hear about the wilder glens of Valenwood.  Half of what you hear are half-truths turned to legends, spread enthusiastically by those who wish to keep our borders our own.  One of the many methods we employ when dealing with interlopers and invaders."

    A fresh series of rumbling quakes shook them all to silence, and Ulfric's mouth thinned as the masonry began to shift around them.  "We need to move!  Now!"  Ralof was directed up the tower's stone stairs, B'Sanna to follow, and they were no more than a third of the way up when the dragon's head burst through the stonework, spouting hellish flames that spilled like liquid, near melting the rock.  B'Sanna yanked Ralof back by his cloth and leather cuirass, and they stumbled backwards, just out of range, cowering together as they knelt on the lower steps.

    The dragon moved on, leaving a gaping, smoldering hole in the side of the tower, and an unfortunate Stormcloak's charred remains, smoking in the superheated rubble.  B'Sanna closed her eyes against the sight, and turned toward the view of Helgen.  Ralof was telling her to jump, that they'd meet up on the other side of the village.  She wondered if he meant it.  She jumped.


End file.
